


Life Behind a Shadow

by TheSummoningDark



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSummoningDark/pseuds/TheSummoningDark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't pay her much mind at first. She's sitting just this side of the fence separating the back yard from next door's, knees drawn up to her chest, watching him with an air of quiet interest. That's fine by him. She can stare all she likes, long as she stays quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Behind a Shadow

The first time the kid shows up, he's sitting on the back porch in the red glow of a spring sunset, cleaning and restringing his crossbow. He doesn't pay her much mind at first. She's sitting just this side of the fence separating the back yard from next door's, knees drawn up to her chest, watching him with an air of quiet interest. That's fine by him. She can stare all she likes, long as she stays quiet.

There's a sudden sound of breaking glass from next door, and the volume of the shouting increases abruptly. He flinches before he can squash the impulse, sees her do the same out of the corner of his eye. And...yeah, maybe right there's the real reason he hasn't chased her off. He knows how that one goes. Sometimes it's not about where you are so much as where you're not. 

The shouting dies down eventually, and she slips away a little while after.

A couple of days later he's out there again, just kicking back with a beer after a long day, when she hops the fence and makes herself comfortable at the base of the stunted old tree at the end of the yard. He's half expecting it this time. He'd heard the ornery old bastard next door - her daddy, he assumes - roll home drunk a little while ago. He doesn't say anything, just sits with his feet up on the porch railing and sips at his beer. She stays down at the far end of the yard, all too-skinny limbs and tangled hair in a ball at the base of the tree. She's still there when he heads back inside, light turning golden as the sun slips down the sky. When he glances out the window again later she's gone.

This goes on for a while - he doesn't bother keeping track of how long. A good couple of months at least, as spring blooms into summer and blankets them in a layer of unpleasantly sticky heat. One particularly muggy Saturday afternoon finds him flat on his back in the driveway with an open toolkit by his knees, doing battle with a mysterious and persistent oil leak on Merle's bike. Normally he leaves the bike be when its owner's off doing another stretch on the inside, but the damn thing doesn't seem to take too kindly to being ignored for months at a time. It's worth taking an afternoon now and then to keep it in shape if only to avoid Merle pitching a fit when he gets out and the damn bike isn't working.

He more or less knows his way around an engine, but an expert he's not, so there's a fair amount of guesswork going on. It's taking up enough of his attention that for once he doesn't notice right off when the kid shows up. She's been hanging around more lately - school must be out - and maybe it's just because he's got used to her being around that the first time he ever actually speaks to her, it's completely without thinking. "Gimme the spanner," he says, waving a hand in her direction. After all, she's right there, and if he moves his other hand enough to reach the tool kit this damn seal's going to piss oil everywhere. 

When nothing's happened after a few moments he lifts his head and squints up to see her wearing an expression of wary confusion, as though she's not quite sure what to make of this new development. "C'mon, girl," he says, brusquely but not unkindly. "If you're gonna hang around you can at least make yourself useful." She takes the two steps to the toolkit cautiously and lifts the spanner as though expecting it to bite. She's even more careful in placing the tool in his outstretched hand, wound spring-tight and ready to backpedal, and he deliberately waits until she's backed away again before he moves.

This goes on for a while, comfortable silence punctuated with occasional requests for tools - some of which he has to describe in terms of shape, color, and position in the kit when the names don't mean anything to her - and by the time the leak's been located and stopped, she's relaxed enough to tentatively ask what he's doing.

Halfway through a very basic explanation (simplified in part to make sense at a kid's level of understanding, and in part because he learned this stuff largely through trial and error and therefore doesn't necessarily know the technical terms for everything) he becomes aware of another pair of eyes on them. He glances up to see the kid's mom discreetly not-watching them from the front window. He knows who she is even though they've never met. For the most part she does a good job of hiding the bruises, but he can't help but recognize that submissive stance and the trying-to-think-yourself-invisible mindset it stems from. Like maybe if you're small and inoffensive enough you'll get overlooked. Sometimes it even works.

Two nights later the shouting from next door is punctuated by a shrill scream, and someone finally calls the cops. When he goes out onto the front porch to watch the flashing red and blues roll up - this fuckin' neighborhood, better than cable - he nearly trips over the kid, huddled in a trembling ball by the door. As soon as she sees him she starts scrubbing at her face with one damp sleeve, sniffling as she tries to stop crying. Yeah, he'll bet that sort of thing hasn't gone over well in her experience. He doesn't say anything. He knows damn well there's nothing worth saying. Instead he stands in silence, leaning against the doorframe with folded arms, watching as the cops haul her daddy into the back of the squad car. There's an ambulance sitting there as well.

His attention refocuses abruptly as one of the cops changes course to head straight for them. For him, rather - doing rounds of all the neighbors no doubt - but he sees the moment the cop notices the kid. He stops at the base of the porch steps, eyes flickering between the two of them like he's not entirely sure what to make of the scene in front of him. In all fairness, it's an odd scene to be faced with; the kid curled up next to a textbook example of that one resident on the street every parent tells their children to stay clear of. Daryl's pretty comfortable in his status as the kind of guy any self-respecting cop would arrest on sight. It's only the hesitation here that's a novelty.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cop opts to sidestep the issue in favor of addressing the kid directly. "We've been looking for you," he tells her. When she doesn't give any response beyond eyeing him warily, he continues, "Your mom's worried about you, sweetheart. You wanna get back, let her know you're okay?" That strikes a cord; the kid uncurls slowly and climbs to her feet. She gives the cop as wide a berth as possible as she skirts around him and runs off toward her house.

As soon as she's gone the cop turns his gaze to Daryl, who's been expecting it and returns it with an expression that's impassive bordering on insolent.

"You wanna tell me what she was doing over here?"

"Closest place that wasn't over there?" Daryl shrugs. "She was hidin' out on the porch when I came out to see what all the flashin' lights were about."

"You know her?"

"Don't even know the kid's name." Which is completely true, despite also being a lie in everything but technicality.

After that it's all standard questions - does he know anything about the family next door, have there been incidents like this before - which for the most part he answers with as much honesty as he feels capable of while faced with a cop taking notes. He's also asked for his name, which garners a slight double take followed by a knowing look, because of course every cop in the fucking county is personally acquainted with his brother. Eventually the cop nods and flips his notebook closed and moves on.

Gossip flies furiously in the neighborhood for the next few days, enough so that even he can't help but overhear some, no matter how determinedly disinterested he tries to be. On the upside, at least he finally learns their damn names. And it's with a sinking sort of something a little too much like deja vu that a week later he hears Mrs Peletier has declined to press charges. He's not remotely surprised. He knows how this sort of shit goes, and it's always the same. But he can't help but think of the kid - asking tentative questions over a toolkit, crying in the shadows of his front porch - and part of him wishes he _could_ be surprised.

She's around more often now, though she's back to keeping her distance and silence both. When he notices her mom watching these days it's less with worry and more with something akin to relief. He doesn't think too hard about how bad things have to be at home for the kid trailing around after someone like _him_ to be the lesser evil.

It's quiet for a good long while after the night the cops show, but that was never going to last. The night the shouting starts again, he steps out onto the back porch to find her perched on the railing, legs swinging idly in the air. She sits there as the last hints of sunset fade from the sky, as the stars grow brighter overhead, as the moon slips down in the sky toward the horizon.

"I don't want to go back," she tells the still night air eventually. It's the first time she's said anything to him without being spoken to first.

"Don't have much of a choice," he replies.

She looks down. "I know."

He rests his elbows on the railing a few yards down from her. He remembers being where she is, much as he'd like to not, and one thing he remembers all too clearly is how nothing anyone ever had to say ever _helped_. They tried, and it probably all came from a well-meaning place, but pity was not a substitute for actual understanding. No matter how kindly it was meant. But in this if nothing else, understanding is one thing he can do. He doesn't look at her, choosing to fix his gaze on the horizon instead as he shares the only worthwhile thing he's ever learned. "A hard life ain't always a bad thing," he tells her in a matter-of-fact tone. "It don't have to break you if you don't let it. Take it, use it. Learn to be tough."

She makes a sound that could be a snort or a laugh or a sob or a mixture of all three. "So which one did you do?" she retorts. 

Something that's very nearly a smile twists his lips. 

"Still workin' on that bit."


End file.
